No Kenyan road should have potholes!
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
24 November 2019
A few days ago, I
travelled from Thika to Nyandarua along the C66 highway that passes via
Mang’u (the village; not the famous national high school) and through a
20-kilometre section of the Aberdare forest.
Like many other roads
in Kenya, the 20-km portion through the forest is badly worn out. As
usual, local youths are trying to fill up the potholes with soil which
they dig from the roads should leaving deep gullies behind. In return,
they beg for hand-outs from passing vehicles.
Upon this
observation, I began to wonder why this important link road – it
connects the fertile Nyandarua farmlands to the big markets in Thika –
has been allowed to dilapidate so badly. Doesn’t it generate enough
funds from the Road Maintenance Fuel Levy?
To find out, we need
to know the number of vehicles passing through and the amount of fuel
each consumes while passing in that section of the road. So, I started
counting the cars!
I found that there
was one car coming from the opposite direction after one kilometre of
driving on average. I also observed our average speed was between 40km/h
and 60km/h.
At an average of
50km/h it means that the cars were covering the 1-km separation in about
72 seconds. This is also the time elapsing as the cars entered this
section of the road. That is 50 vehicles per hour.
The average flow rate
remains at this level for about 18 hours each day – from about 4am to
10pm. Thus, each day, about 900 vehicles pass through this section
heading in one direction, and another 900 in the opposite way. That is,
1,800 altogether.
The next question is:
how much fuel is consumed by these vehicles when driving along this
dilapidated 20-km section? Most vehicles run about 5km per litre on
urban streets and 15km/L on the highway. Therefore, on this potholed
road, they probably averaged 10km/L.
Thus, each car
consumes about 2L of fuel in the 20km section. Now, the Road Maintenance
Fuel Levy is SH18 per litre, so each vehicle contributes about Sh36
while driving on this worn-out, 20-km section.
Incidentally, the
youths expect about Sh20 per car and they have positioned themselves at
six locations. That makes a total of Sh120 for a shoddy job! Please
don’t encourage them by giving hand-outs!
At Sh36 per vehicle,
the daily contribution from 1,800 cars to the fuel levy funds is about
Sh65,000; or about Sh24 million per year. Is this enough to do the
repairs?
I looked at the Kenya
Roads Board website for data on recent repairs works. The costs vary
from a Sh1.4 million to Sh12 million per kilometre. This variation is
because the scopes of works is different.
The median cost is
about Sh2 million per km. Thus, it would cost about Sh40 million to fix
the 20-km section. This is slightly less than what this road generates
from levies in two years.
In short, there is no
good reason why this road (or any other) is in such a bad state. The
fuel levy is enough to keep all of them smooth.
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